branden

I don't think they can get away with charging more than they already are. The prices of the 580EXII are already in the range of (cheap) monolights, and I think they would lose sales to 3rd party studio lighting companies if they tried to push prices up higher. For portable lighting the speedlights are great, but they're also selling to people who use them to double as quick & easy & ultra-portable staged setups.

The basic discussion in the cr report makes no sense to me. I fail to see the connection between color temperature and "exposure".

We may be suffering here from some "loss in translation".

In any case, Canon Speedlite flash units have for some time (I believe from the 580EX onward) reported to the body an estimate of the color temperature of the specific burst used for a shot so that the body can take this into account when doing white balance color correction.

I can only think of putting 3 flash bulbs in the head, each gelled with one primary color (RGB) and adjust the output of each flash bulb accordingly to give the desired color temperature.

Or could it be LED based instead of flash bulb? (doubtful as I don't think LED's have the light power that a flash bulb does)

I'm thinking LED here actually. There are mass manufactured LEDs reaching into the 100 lumens per watt range, where fluorescent (currently the best lumens/watt lamp) is. Add that LEDs are low-voltage already (smaller capacitors), want to be 6000K to start, and are already a directional source (eliminating the reflector entirely) and we're pretty far down the road to what manufacturers would consider a pretty good thing. Then it just becomes a second "warm white" grouping of LEDs next to the 6000K ones and you're dialing in your color temperature quickly and easily.

Gothmoth

The basic discussion in the cr report makes no sense to me. I fail to see the connection between color temperature and "exposure".

We may be suffering here from some "loss in translation".

yep i think so.

imho what that means is that the guide number (power output) will be different for different color temperatures the flash is set to.therefore the exposure needs to be adjusted according to the color temperature of the flash.

A colleague was kind enough to arrange for a machine translation of the Japanese patent publication.

I have not yet perused it at any length. The translation is a bit clumsy but is still very welcome.

The patent indeed refers to a flash unit using (for example) three sets of LED's so that the chromaticity of the flash burst can be set, presumably (as mentioned by one of the correspondents here) so that the flash illumination can match the chromaticity of the ambient illumination. [Note that this involves more than the correlated color temperature, although much of the discussion proceeds as if that is the only parameter of interest.].

Presumably this concept itself has been covered in earlier patents.

The thrust of this patent (as it seemed from the earlier characterization) is to provide for automatic flash exposure control to perform properly in this situation.

The prices of the 580EXII are already in the range of (cheap) monolights. For portable lighting the speedlights are great, but they're also selling to people who use them to double as quick & easy & ultra-portable staged setups.

Right, they're pretty close in price to Paul C Buff Einsteins which I recently bought four of. No buyer regret there...the Einsteins are fantastic. (Happy to expand on this but getting OT)

But for 580's to be useful in staged setups, especially when used with modifiers, an external power source for each 580 is a must. Quality batteries cost as much or more than the 580 itself.

Many of us need both mono's & speedlights. My 580ex & 580 exII are ready for retirement...I'll pre-order at least two of this new flash as soon as it's announced.

i switched over to Canon from Nikon a few years ago. the one thing that i miss most is Nikon flash. a back light setting, the master/slave settings on the on/off switch, diffuser and color correcting filters and most of all an intelligent power port and cable mount for external batteries. anyone here ever accidentally push the one inside the unit on a 580?